Fall 2024

Greetings from the Clinical Program!

We are grateful to continue to be in touch with you, our alumni, friends, and supporters. We are sending this at a time of reflection and reckoning as the legal landscape shifts post-election. 

We hope that this newsletter including alumni successes, faculty contributions, and ongoing efforts to expand our commitment to social justice and legal education provides a bit of light and inspiration. 

This fall semester we welcomed more than 100 students across our 14 clinics. We recently held our Spring 2025 clinical program information fair and are looking forward to meeting our new students and continuing to work with our returning students next semester. 

This spring we are very excited to welcome Alina Ball, who will direct the Social Enterprise Clinic focused on racial justice. We will launch three new offerings designed for 1Ls: a Global Rights Innovation Lab Clinic, a California “Bad Bills” Project to reduce mass incarceration through the Policy Advocacy Clinic, and a seminar to prepare students for social justice practice. We are launching a search for a director of a new Family Defense Clinic, the first of its kind on the west coast, and we look forward to continuing to expand the clinical program so that we can reach more students in additional subject matters and areas for skill development.

We are proud to offer this snapshot of the transformative work happening in our Clinical Program. We hope you will consider donating to the Clinical Program to help us strengthen the social justice pipeline by expanding our reach to more students. Your support of the Clinical Program ensures that all clinics have the foundation they need to continue our work to advance racial, economic, and social justice.

We also hope to keep in touch. To see regular updates, join us online, on social media, and reach out to us anytime (lriley@berkeley.edu).

Remembering Eleanor Swift

Last Fall we lost Professor Eleanor Swift, a pioneer and supporter of experiential education and clinics at Berkeley Law. Read more about her public interest legacy here from our own Jeff Selbin’s 2017 article memorializing her work. Jeff Selbin is the Policy Advocacy Clinic Faculty Director and Chancellor’s Clinical Professor of Law.

New Faculty

We are excited to celebrate former students and colleagues thriving in the legal academy, and to welcome new faculty members to our clinical program. 

Natalia Ramírez Lee (alum of the Human Rights Clinic), Seema Patel (former Clinical Director at EBCLC), Kate Weisburd (former Supervising Attorney in the Death Penalty Clinic and founder of the Youth Defender Clinic at EBCLC) are all at UC Law SF; Mariana Acevedo Nuevo (former supervising attorney in the New Business Community Law Clinic) is at Cardozo, Nazune Menka (former supervising attorney in the Environmental Law Clinic) is at Seattle U; Megan Graham (former supervising attorney in the Samuelson Law Technology and Public Policy Clinic) is at Iowa Law; and Ahmed Lavalais (former fellow at the Policy Advocacy Clinic) is at University of Cincinnati Law.

In addition, thirteen new clinicians joined the clinics over the past year. Read more about their backgrounds here. We have no doubt that the work and life experiences they bring, along with their commitment to education and advocacy will enrich clinic work and the student experience. 

Clinical Program releases 2023-2024 annual report

Last year, 225 students enrolled in our 14 clinics, collaborating with faculty, staff, and clients to advance justice in the East Bay, nationally, and globally. Please take a look at the Clinical Program’s annual report to learn more.

Join us for a CLE

Please join us for a free CLE presentation on Thursday, January 16 at 12pm PST on Legislative Developments to Eliminate Court-Ordered Debt for Youth in the Criminal Legal System. Cameron Clark, Supervising Attorney in the Policy Advocacy Clinic and National Co-Coordinator of Debt Free Justice will discuss recent state legislative efforts to end criminal financial penalties for youth in California and across the country. Register here.

We have a small but mighty staff!

Laura Riley, director; Olivia Layug Balbarin, director of administration; Adelaida Caballero, office administrator; Stephanie Shattuck, paralegal for the Death Penalty Clinic, Lauren Havey, paralegal; and Veronica Avila, office administrator (not pictured).